Florida's cliff deal fallout

1/2/13 7:24 PM EST

The Florida Times-Union’s Matt Dixon reports on early fallout for the Florida Republicans who voted for the fiscal cliff deal:

The First Coast Tea Party does not give hometown discounts.

On Wednesday, the group sent out a statement hammering U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw, a Jacksonville Republican, and four other Florida House Republicans for supporting the “fiscal cliff” deal that many in the GOP opposed.

“The 2012 campaign is less than two months old and already five Florida Republicans have abandoned the conservative principles on which they campaigned,” read a statement from the group.

Crenshaw didn’t exactly embrace the bill – in a statement, he referred to it as “not a perfect solution,” and pointed to sequestration as a factor in his vote, since his defense-heavy, Jacksonville-area district would have taken a hard hit.

With five yes votes – the others were Vern Buchanan, Mario Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Bill Young – Florida had more Republicans voting in favor of the deal than any Sun Belt state other than California, a sign of the political diversity of the state's large GOP delegation.